South African Fintech, Nomanini, Expands Supply Chain Finance Solution to 8 New Markets

Through a strategic agreement with financial services provider Baobab Group, South African fintech startup Nomanini is extending the reach of its recently announced supply chain finance solution StockNow to eight additional African regions.

Headquartered in Cape Town and founded in 2011, Nomanini has created a platform that enables unlicensed traders and microbusiness owners. It focuses on developing nations to sell digital goods like airtime and pre-paid electricity.

Nomanini also provides microloans to business owners and operates in nations including Ghana and Mozambique. The startup raised a $4M round in 2019, co-led by Standard Bank and finished by Goodwell Investments, an investment company based in Amsterdam. Additionally, it banked $1,500,000 in funding for 2021.

With Baobab, a financial services firm that offers financial services to 500,000 micro-entrepreneurs and small enterprises through its subsidiaries, the startup has now reached a strategic relationship. Eight African nations currently have operations for the business, and Nomanini will now gradually develop its StockNow service there. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Madagascar, and Senegal are among them.

Nomanini will launch StockNow in the DRC as part of its first project with Baobab Group, and over the next five years. The partnership aims to reach 820,000 micro, small, and medium-sized retailers in the other seven markets.

CEO Vahid Monadjem stated that Nomanini will explore novel approaches to collaborations that enable it remain at the forefront of linking retailers to digital financial services to boost their companies.

“The Nomanini and Baobab Group partnership is a powerful combination. It strategically aligns both companies to create services that deliver the best value to retailers. We believe this partnership will create compelling and sustainable value for the evolving needs of Africa’s general trade sector,” said Monadjem.

How Nomanini Operates

The platform allows the creation and rollout of business banking products for unlicensed retail merchants for financial service providers. To achieve quick deployment of an alternative banking channel and the low cost acquisition of merchants’ business banking customers, Nomanini utilizes already-existing relationships across the FMCG value chain.

Specifically, the startup helps financial service providers achieve the following:

• Establish ubiquitous sites of representation outside of established financial channels
• Obtain retail MSMEs as business banking clients in markets where cash is king
• Use responsible capital to fund FMCG stock in retail MSMEs

Nomanini’s embedded supply chain financing solution makes it possible to finance the placement of stock on general merchandise. This allows it store shelves for the FMCG value chain. Stock advancements in conjunction with useful data enhance supply chain efficiencies and boost distribution capacity.

The startup’s service to the FMCG value chain include:

• Financing general merchandise inventory on one’s own balance sheet
• Increase sales in general commerce by addressing MSMEs’ working capital requirements
• Gain access to general trade data to see MSME sales and preferences